China Property

China’s property market has surged in recent years. After prices jumped 25 per cent in 2009 alone, the central government imposed austerity measures, including lending curbs, higher mortgage rates and restrictions on the number of homes each family can buy.

China Overseas Land & Investment (COLI) yesterday announced a 33.8 billion yuan asset acquisition from its ultimate controlling shareholder, China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCECL), after the company reported a better-than-expected core net profit of HK$23.83 billion for last year.

Country Garden plans to raise an undisclosed amount in senior notes to refinance its existing US$900 bond that will mature in 2018, the Chinese property developer said in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange on Thursday.

Around the turn of the 20th century in New York, there was a frenzy of residential development in Harlem, to complement an “El” train that would allow for a quick commute into the business district of Manhattan.

Some Chinese developers are planning to raise prices for new luxury projects in prime areas this year, in a rare sign of improving sentiment in a market that saw new home prices fall for the last eight months of 2014.

Supportive policies for homebuyers have helped trim the number of major cities suffering price falls, but sharp declines in the lower-cities last month point to a deepening polarisation in the mainland market.

Shares at Kaisa Group Holdings fell by more than 9 per cent on Tuesday morning as the troubled Shenzhen-based property developer revealed in a stock filing that assets frozen by courts to protect creditors soared to more than US$2 billion.

A subsidiary of Sunac China Holdings will acquire 37.85 per cent in equity and debt in Shanghai Fengdan Lishi Real Estate Development for 1.3 billion yuan (HK$1.61 billion), the company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.

Prices of existing homes inched up in Beijing and Shanghai last month, but falling sales indicated recovery in China's housing market remains fragile, according to the latest readings of the SCMP-Century 21 index.